ALBANY, N.Y. (VINnews) — A New York state health panel on Thursday advanced a long-delayed plan to bring Brooklyn’s Maimonides Health into the city’s public hospital system, a proposed $2.2 billion rescue that supporters say would stabilize a major safety-net provider while opponents warn it would strip a longstanding community institution of its independence.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The Public Health and Health Planning Council’s Establishment and Project Review Committee included the proposal on its Aug. 27 agenda. State Health Department staff recommended contingent approval, meaning the project could proceed once remaining conditions are satisfied, including documentation of a $2.245 billion Safety Net Transformation Program grant. The full council is scheduled to vote Sept. 17.
The transaction is not yet final. Even if the council approves it, court review of the nonprofit asset transfer and other litigation would remain unresolved. Maimonides continued operating independently Thursday.
Under the proposed deal, NYC Health + Hospitals would operate Maimonides Medical Center at 4802 Tenth Avenue, Maimonides Midwood Community Hospital and dozens of clinics through newly created public subsidiaries. City and state officials have said the affiliation would give the Brooklyn system access to higher Medicaid reimbursement rates available to public hospitals, a new electronic health record system and additional state operating and capital support.
Maimonides, founded more than a century ago and named for the medieval Jewish physician and philosopher, is Brooklyn’s largest independent health system. It delivers thousands of babies each year, operates the borough’s only children’s hospital and pediatric trauma center, and serves a large share of Medicare and Medicaid patients. Hospital leaders have cited chronic operating losses tied in part to those reimbursement rates.
A supermajority of Maimonides trustees approved an affiliation and asset-transfer agreement in December 2025. City and hospital officials had initially targeted a spring 2026 closing, but the timeline was delayed after the state attorney general referred the nonprofit transfer to court and an Albany judge ruled in May that a previous Health Department grant award could not substitute for the required Public Health Council review.
Jewish Community groups and some Maimonides trustees have opposed the plan.
On Thursday, the Coalition to Preserve Maimonides said it had submitted more than 34,000 signatures urging the council to require an independent comparison of alternatives before approving the public takeover.
A bipartisan group of Brooklyn lawmakers, including state Sens. Stephan Chan and Sam Sutton, Assembly members Lester Chang, Simcha Eichenstein and Kalman Yeger, and City Council members Simcha Felder and Susan Zhuang, called for “open books” and urged the state not to predetermine the outcome.
Supporters, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration and NYC Health + Hospitals, say the partnership would protect access to health care in the city’s most populous borough while preserving specialty services that other Brooklyn hospitals do not provide on the same scale. They have also said Maimonides would retain its name and much of its local culture.
Take note that part of the “help” package is that putting Israel Zion under the HHC umbrella would raise its Medicaid reimbursement rates.
It seems to me that just perhaps, if a dozen politicians tried really hard, they could make this change without the whole additional overhead and confusion.
Like many hosptals, when Iz was founded many philanthropists mostly Jewish stepped up to the plate and donated big money. That would save Maimonides today too
What am I missing
2- 3 years ago ,all over adds to
shut down this cesspool ,…
Now everyone’s upset about it ???
How is this being funded? How much would this cost taxpayers?
Will this mean even longer waits in emergency rooms? Private hospitals usually have more funding for advanced medical technology, specialized research, and high-end surgical procedures, leading to higher scores in specialized care categories.
They were going to be brought out by Northwell and I guess that did not work out. The problem is that majority of City hospitals are garbage like Queens General and Gouvenir in Manhattan. Terrible foreign trained doctors and run more like a VA hospital. The doctors have to see 60 patients between 9AM and 12PM .
Bochuk supports it all the politicians had to do was to st. If this thing goes we dump.hochul
1) They can go IPO and be taken over by private ownership of shareholders. 2) Touro University already is in the hospital business. Touro can buy out Maimonides the same way they did the first Touro owned hospital. 3) Center Health and the family who own El E\Al can buy them out. Part of why Maimonides currently loses money is the high cost of union labor. A Jewish owned management more cooperating with the Frum community would be able to replace much of the union labor with bikur cholim volunteers, who would work for free or at least for less costonce the union red tape is less of a problem. .